Brown's Daily Word 6/17/15

    Praise the Lord for this fantastic Friday.  Once again it is sunny and brilliant.  We are getting ready for the weekend.  Tom and Jessie are busy caring for their newborn "little princess'.  Sunita and Andy are eagerly and prayerfully waiting for the birth of their little one in a  few weeks.  Janice and Jeremy will be busy with their energetic trio in Boston as they spend the summer days in Boston.  Laureen is having one of her friends visiting this weekend in Washington, DC.  We are getting ready for worship in our new church this coming Sunday at 11:00 AM.  It is all celebratory and worshipful.  One of the young couples that I married a few summers ago were blessed with a new son, weighing 11 pounds 4 ounces.  We praise the Lord.  This young couple loves the Lord and loves life.  They are using some my equipment that I gave them to keep bees and raise honey.  The gift keeps on giving.  Praise the Lord for summer time and for the great outdoors, when we can get together for parties, celebrations, and all forms of get-togethers. 

 

    Our Lord Jesus loved parties; He loved  beaches and boats.  He spent much of His ministry time by the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus talked about a man who gave mega-party, which we read about in Luke 14.  The man, whose name we do not know,  invited numerous people to the party, to the banquet, to the great ballroom, and the people had numerous excuses why they couldn’t come.  The first person said that he would love to come, but "I just bought a new field"  Today he might have been saying,"I just got a new job; that new job of mine is just so time-consuming; my job is so consuming, I just don’t have time for you."  The second person said, "I would love to come to your party, but I just bought five new oxen."  We hear the same sentiment today when our friends and acquaintances say, "I just bought a new camper; I just bought a new boat; I am so busy; I am a teenager - I have track and soccer and swimming and baseball; I have all of these really wonderful things which are really important to me and I just don’t have time for you."  Then the third would-be disciple said, "We would love to come to your party, but we just go married"  We hear this resounding theme every day.  Jesus persistently reminds us that for those of us who love the good things of life, these "things" can get in the way of keeping our eyes on Jesus and the love of His Kingdom and His righteousness.

    During my graduate School days I studied  some of the writngs by a British New Testament Scholar named Dr. George Caird.  He is my favorite author on the book of Luke, and he gave me this wonderful quotation: “The most difficult choices in life are not primarily between good and evil, but the most difficult choices in life are between what is good and what is best.”  Home, children, family, and jobs are all good; they are absolutely wonderful; but they are not the best.  The best is Jesus.  The best is the love of God.  The best is the kingdom of God.  The best is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  The best is doing the work of the Kingdom,in the world.  The best is taking care of all of God’s family on the globe.  All the other things of life are good, but they are not the best.  Let us keep our eyes on the best.

In Christ the Priceless One.

 Pastor Brown.

https://youtu.be/oxpPIa-BskY

Brown's Daily Word 7/16/15

Praise the Lord for another stunning and spectacular summer day here in central New York.  Yesterday we drove through the countryside, surveying the hills, vales, and mountains, the rivers and rivulets, the farms including blueberry farms, and corn fields. The whole topography resembles the majestic " Downs" England. You can see the beauty and blessings of the Lord all around.  Our church hosted a church-wide Wednesday evening dinner yesterday.  It was prepared with much love and served with much grace.  Many people of all ages came and gathered in the church hall for a great time of fellowship, laughter, and love.  In the Kingdom God "the cup is always full" with love and grace.  There was even plenty of  food left over.  It was an evening of great sharing and rejoicing.
    As I write I am filled with gratitude to the Lord who is the Resurrection and Life, for the life and witness of Juna, who was part of our lives for the last 25 years.  She entered into the arms of Jesus in her sleep, this past weekend at the age of 90.  She was a sweet servant of Jesus who loved Him, loved His church, and loved his people.  She was a great prayer warrior.  She prayed fervently until something happened .  She never missed worship on Sundays.  She never missed prayer meetings.  She never forgot to tithe.  She exuded the pure joy of loving the Lord and being loved by Him.  We praise the Lord for Juna, who made it easier to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ our Lord.

    It is summer time.  We often watch the Weather Channel for breaking news.  We hear about tornados, hurricanes, thunder storms, typhoons, and floods.

    One day, Jesus was out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee.  We read about this miracle in Mark 4.  Jesus was out there with his closest friends, Peter, James and John, plus the other disciples.  The boat was large enough to handle all of them. His three friends were experienced fishermen who knew the mood of the water, its ugliness, and its surliness.  According to the Biblical story they were out there with several other boats.  Jesus had become famous and so when he got into a boat and sailed out into the Sea of Galilee, everybody got into their boats and followed him, just as crowds today follow famous people.

    They were all out there in the middle of the Sea of Galilee when suddenly, like a tornado in the Midwest of America, along came a wind squall from the east side of the lake, down through the crevasses, down through the gullies.  The waves on the lake can be suddenly five to six feet tall. A vicious storm hit and the waves started to get really big and the waves started coming over the side of the boat. Even these experienced fishermen knew it was time to panic.

    Rembrandt captured the scene on canvas.  Our Lord Jesus, who had a great sense of humor, was sleeping in the stern of the boat.  A pillow was under his head and he was sleeping soundly while the muscular fishermen were fighting for their lives.  The disciples were afraid.  As experienced fishermen they weren’t easily frightened by storms but this storm was nasty enough to make them afraid.  They grabbed Jesus’ shirt and shouted, “Jesus, wake up.” They spoke that classic line from Biblical literature when they said, “Don’t you care?  Don’t you care that we are perishing in this storm?”  That question, "Don't you care that we are perishing in the storm?" has echoed down through the centuries.

    Jesus woke up and said to the storm, “Be still,” as if he were casting out a demon.  When Jesus cast out demons from people, he had said, “Be quiet.  Be still,” and Jesus quieted the storm inside of people.  But now Jesus was quieting the storm itself on the lake.  Suddenly, it was very calm and Jesus turned to his disciples and asked, “Why are you so afraid?  Why are you so afraid of the storms of life?  Don’t you have faith?  Don’t you trust that I am with you during the storms of life?  Where is your faith?”

    This same question has echoed down through the centuries, "Why do you have so little faith in the midst of the storms of life?"  The disciples became quiet because they had not seen anything like this before.  That somebody who controlled the winds and the waves must be, they believed, the Son of God.

    Thus ends a great story, one of those great eyewitness stories.  Simon Peter must have been the one to have told this personal story. Simon Peter knew this story because he was there, on the scene, on the lake, in the squall.  He knew this story well.

This miracuolous event  is an invitation for us to trust our Lord. To trust in Him, not merely when life is good, in the the good times when we have plenty of health, cash and family around. But to trust in Him, in the midst of the storms of life. The disciples did not realize that the power and presence of the Lord  was with them during their storm.   We are invited to trust God, especially during our own personal storms of life.

Life as we know it is filled with storms. In the midst of all the storms of life, when the powers of Satan are all around us, our intuitive instinct is to be afraid. It is to have a panic attack. It is to ask God, “Don’t you care?” Into those situations, Jesus asks a profound question, “Why are you afraid?” “Why aren’t you trusting?” “Why are you so afraid of the storms of life?”

 I was reading about Dr. Alvin Rogness, who was the president of Luther Seminary in St. Paul Dr. Rogness wrote several books but one of his most famous devotional books is entitled, HE WAS ONLY TWENTY FOUR. When his son, Paul, who was only twenty four, the Oxford scholar, his oldest boy, came back from England and got off the bus in Minneapolis, he was hit by a car and killed instantly. Dr. Rogness wrote this devotional called, HE WAS ONLY TWENTY FOUR. He wrote, “Life doesn’t begin when you are old. My son was only twenty four and he was living life to the fullest.”

In that book, Dr. Rogness also had a chapter called STORM CENTERS. He wrotethe following words, “You and I are built for storms. We are not built for cozy, safe little harbors. The Lord is with us. With him, we have the kind of craft that can weather any storm. In fact, we should head out for the storms. One of the great perils that faces the church in our day is that we will steer people out of the storm centers. We are not to anchor our lives in some sheltered cove and let the storm tossed world go by. The Lord’s call is not like that. Not to an easier task but a greater cause. Not to peace but to battle. Not to a cozy harbor but to the sea of storms. We are not built for safe harbors. We are built for storms.”

Dr. Rogness' words are true: We are built for storms.Amen.

In Jesus our Lord,

  Pastor Brown N.

https://youtu.be/77SuukJEJ2Q

Brown's Daily Word 7/13/15

    Praise the Lord for this glorious and gorgeous day in Central New York, particularly in the town of Marathon.  He blessed us with His love and grace in His House yesterday.  The Church family hosted a fellowship hour after worship in our honor.  It was a great blessing.  We had some family and friends who joined us for Sunday dinner in our new home.  In the evening we walked around, meeting our new neighbors.  It was a blessing.  Our newsiest granddaughter Rosalind is doing well in Abington, PA.  Our oldest daughter, Janice, and her daughter, Micah, drove down from Boston to Abington, Pa  to spend some time with Rosalind and her family.  Ad I write this I occasionally hear the tractor trailers driving past, sharing the road with some farm tractors, trucks, cars, and even Horse and buggies driven by the Amish people.  They all intersect the train tracks where the train runs twice a day.   I can hear beautiful and gentle morning doves serenading in the early morning joining with other birds that love to sing and offer sweet melodies to the Lord.  We are surrounded by His matchless beauty, endless love and grace, and  never-ending faithfulness.  We are blessed and loved.

    It is always a treat to be in church worshiping the Risen Lord.  Somehow Jesus comes and gives us the victory.  Followers of Jesus have been given different names over the centuries.  At first, they were called "Christians," which means "Christ ones" (Acts 11:26).  The commonest word for these committed to Jesus is disciple, which means a learner.  In his epistle, Paul addressed the Christians as saints, those set apart for God.  They are also called believers, beloved, or children of God. Each of these names describes a distinctive characteristic of the lives of those who follow Christ.  John suggested another name for Christians: overcomers.  A Christian is one who overcomes.

    The description of a Christian as an overcomer is confirmed in other places in the New Testament.  Revelation says this about the saints of God: "They overcame him because of the Blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11).  Paul said to the Romans: "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us" (R4omans 8:37). Paul urged the Corinthians to give thanksgiving to God "who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:57). God's children are to be overcomers. We are to experience victory in our Christian lives.
An overcomer is one who acknowledges the problem. The word overcomer implies that something stands in our way, that we are confronted by an obstacle, that we have problems which we have to overcome. An overcomer is not someone who breezes through life without any opposition or obstacles in his way. An overcomer is one who realizes each day will present another problem, another barrier, another obstacle that stands in his way, another opponent who criticizes him.  He acknowledges the problems and then sets out to deal with them.

    Whether or not you are an overcomer has nothing to do with the circumstances around you.  It has everything to do with the commitment inside you.   Everyone has circumstances.  The key is what you do with those circumstances. Problems will constantly confront you as you live out your Christian life.  A Christian has a problem to overcome if he is to win victory in his Christian life.  He sees those problems as challenges he has to overcome.  An overcomer acknowledges the problem.

    John said -- and he repeated it for emphasis -- that the Christian can overcome the world.  That is the promise of God's word.  You do not have to be defeated by the devil.  You do not have to be disgraced by sin.  You do not have to be destroyed by suffering.   You can win the victory.  You can overcome.  is the promise of God's word.

    Joseph was in the dungeon, but God released him.  The Hebrews were in slavery, but God delivered them.  David was overwhelmed by the guilt of his sin, but God forgave him.  Daniel was in the lion's den, but God preserved him.  Jonah was in the belly of the fish, but God retrieved him.  The world is Satan and his plans.  The world is sin and its pressure.  The world is suffering and its pain.    The world is that which stands in opposition to God.  It tries to destroy our Christian witness.  It tries to distort our desires.  It tries to confuse our value system.  It tries to dilute our interest in God's Word.  It tries to squeeze us into its mold. It tries to draw us away from God.  The problem is the world which tempts us to forget who we are and whose we are and to live beneath our privileges.

    "This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith,"
All of life is lived on faith, and every person has faith in something.  We open a can of food and eat it because we have faith that it is not harmful to us.  We get on a plane and sit back with assurance because we have faith that the person who is flying the plane knows what he is doing.  John is not talking about this general kind of faith, however.  He is talking about a particular kind of faith.  He who overcomes the world is "he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."  Christian faith means to put our faith in Christ.  A faith in Jesus which causes us to believe in Him, talk to Him, walk with Him and abide in Him -- that faith is the key to overcoming the world.

    When David Livingstone, the great missionary to Africa, was called back to London to receive an honor, he was presented the award before a great gathering of well-wishers.  Someone asked him how he had been able to make it through when natives rose up against him and when the power of darkness seemed about ready to overwhelm him.  He opened his well-worn New Testament and said, "let me share with you the verse that helped me make it through: 'Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'"

In Christ,

  Pastor Brown N

https://youtu.be/r0Xvr8maR34